Autumn Silences
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Ram Dass
The sky in autumn boasts cerulean blue, a color so clear and bright it almost takes your breath away. The top of the maple is tinged with pink, and the leaves of the birch and walnut yellow and fall. In just a couple days, the landscape has been repainted with autumn. Each inhale imbibes a strange sort of energy. It must be akin to what nature is undergoing now, the intuition that time is short and getting shorter. The time between the sun’s rising and setting is shorter too. With that knowledge comes a sort of hurrying to get things done, to store up supplies and batten down the hatches before winter is here.
Like many people, autumn is my favorite season. Maybe this speaks to my workaholic nature tuning in to my need for rest. There’s one more burst of getting it done and then things are less hectic. I am busy right now but I’m also in a mood to ponder. I’ve been accused of ruminating on something to the point of exhaustion and I plead guilty to that, but this pondering is different. Peaceful. Poetic. Pure. This feels more like wonder, like contentment with a bit of question rolled up inside it.
I’ve been doing some trail work. I’ve rerouted a section of the Perimeter Trail that never felt quite right to me. The new section feels better. Ever since I finished, I’ve felt drawn to that area at the very back of the property. I trudge up the hills with my journal and my current book. I sit on the blue bench and let the slant of the sun warm me. There is a silence that heals, a moment without an agenda, without an audible voice except . . . the longer I sit and the quieter I am, the more I hear.
We all know that silence is relative and the total absence of sound is rarely found. If you sit outside and stop speaking, the world goes on with its myriad voices. The wind brushes through the tree limbs. Two male cardinals argue and fuss over territory. Someone beyond the ridge is using a chainsaw. Still, there is something about my personal silence that settles me. My pondering goes deeper. I sense a greater connection to the earth as I allow other songs to fill the space. And then (I hope you understand this), I begin to hear myself beyond my “self.” It’s a communion of all the parts of me – farmer, poet, athlete, artist, business owner, daydreamer, workaholic, peace seeker – and it feels like home.
I cannot reach this home within myself by being busy and rushed. I have to hush, to shrink, to settle so deeply into the autumn silences that I am a part of it. Silence is a good teacher. It is a friend as well.
I hope you have a lovely autumn!
Blessings,
Sandy